…went to boot camp

Five weeks into doing a new thing every day and I’m starting to realise some things. Who knew that I’d take to martial arts? Or that spiritual stuff doesn’t always get my goat?

Tonight I went to a boot camp – but in place of monkey bars, jump ropes and truck tyres, there were bare feet, yoga mats and downward dogs. While the session at Circuit of Change might appear tamer than your average boot camp workout, I can assure you there was still a lot of sweat and grimacing.

Our teacher Brian eased us into the session with some stretches and simple yoga poses. Then he turned up the music and we were off.

For an hour, we moved. We lunged, squatted, planked, jumped, punched and kicked. Even though we were still doing lots of yoga moves, they were fluid and involved a lot of floor-to-feet work, which was knackering.

Brian also incorporated boxing and martial art moves into the routine, and these were my favourite. They were fast, precise and made me feel like I was dancing more than exercising.

While I was put off by some things – like how there was not an inch of fat in the whole place – other things were much better than usual workouts. There were no mirrors, the lights were slightly dimmed, and Brian was succinct and encouraging.

As the session drew to a close, he put on some Tracey Chapman and we took a few minutes to relax. And as Brian spoke about ‘energies’, for once I wasn’t rolling my eyes. New York seems to be taking over.

I also had a smile to myself about the city – about how I’d found myself in this bizarre exercise class led by a man with a bun wiggling his hips on a raised yoga mat while the world outside had no idea of what they were missing.